29 ms·
Text-Only Websites
- xnx 6y agoCraigslist probably belongs on this list.
- theelous3 6y agoI would also add old.reddit.com, so long as you can forgive thumbnail images. Disabling custom css, makes the site basically hn-like.
- elektor 6y agoI would love a text-only Reddit if that exists.
- 333c 6y agoI think https://i.reddit.com https://i.reddit.com is "more text-only" even though it does have icons and some thumbnails.
- nprescott 6y agoThe old mobile interface is entirely text, it removes the thumbnails present in the i. subdomain (also available with a trailing /.compact) -- the fact that there are so many different interfaces is a little baffling to me, but the text-only version is the only one I can stand to read: https://www.reddit.com/r/apljk/.mobile https://www.reddit.com/r/apljk/.mobile
- jolmg 6y agoThe site lists: http://www.jimmyr.com/ http://www.jimmyr.com/ which might be it.
- anthk 6y agogopher://gopherddit.com
- dv_dt 6y agoYou can disable thumbnail images by selecting, IIRC, "compress link display" in your account preferences. No custom css needed.
- petercooper 6y agoI should probably email Sijmen but I've been using https://engineeringblogs.xyz/ https://engineeringblogs.xyz/ to help me keep track of hundreds of product/software development blogs and am keeping it as plain as possible.
- op03 6y agoNice job. Bookmarked.
- hknapp 6y agoFinally, something I can read in Lynx.
- enriquto 6y agodude, at least use "links" or, better, "elinks"
- djsumdog 6y agoI wanted to try out making gemini pages. I got some of the example servers, but no where in the official gemini spec, both via http and via gemini, could I find examples of the actual freakin gmi/gml formats! I started up Wireshark and then remembered that the traffic is encrypted by default ... so yea, that's not going to help. Are there any gemini tutorial on how to make a gemini site?
- news_to_me 6y agoIf you have a working gemini client, could you not just look at a server's response and piece together the format? I'm curious because I'd also like to play around with gemini.
- tylerchilds 6y agoFrom their FAQ page, you can try Gemini out, just run: ssh kiosk@gemini.circumlunar.space
- Jaruzel 6y agoI've dipped into Gemini to see if it was worth adding to my gopher client[1], but the defined spec is vague and barely complete. I subscribed to their mailing list, and it's really busy - the spec is clearly in flux and developing rapidly. I'm going to keep an eye on it though. -- [1] http://www.jaruzel.com/gopher/gopher-client-browser-for-windows http://www.jaruzel.com/gopher/gopher-client-browser-for-wind...
- stryan 6y agoI think AV-98 has a setting or function for dumping the raw results of a gemsite. But I think the main reason there's no example is because there's very little to show. Just make a text document and if you need to link to something you use the Gemini method of => URL title text There's a few other things in the spec that are considered hints for clients (using # as headers, * for numbered lists) but those aren't even guaranteed to be rendered by the client as anything but plain text.
- 6y ago
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- lenwood 6y agoI've been thinking of migrating my blog back to text only. When I was a student I kept a "blog" as a list of HTML files that I manually updated. I've been using Wordpress for the past ~15 years and am growing weary of having to keep up with plugin, theme or CMS updates. My blog is not worth this much effort to maintain, I just want a place to share essays and occasional photos. I need time to make the switch, but the simplicity of text only format is attractive.
- aparks517 6y agoI do something like this. You can write HTML almost as simply as text if you ignore some current best-practice.
- enriquto 6y agoGoogle's guidelines for HTML5 [0] are surprisingly good and concise. You can omit most closing tags, and even many "structural" tags are implicitly opened. This is a 100% correct and complete HTML5 document: <!doctype html> <title>Title of the document</title> <p>A paragraph <ul> <li>First item <li>Second item </ul> <p>Another paragraph writing html tables by hand is especially pleasurable due to the auto-closing tags. As I see it, modern HTML is so concise that markdown is more of a burden than an aid. In most cases, we would be better off writing html directly than markdown. Maybe the only thing that I miss is that an empty line creates a paragraph tag. [0] https://google.github.io/styleguide/htmlcssguide.html https://google.github.io/styleguide/htmlcssguide.html
- madhadron 6y agoThat's very cool. Do you have a good solution for inline math?
- hawski 6y agoI wonder how far could one go with just Unicode symbols. Entry would probably need a proper editor support. Additional use of sub/sup could also help. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_operators_and_symbols_in_Unicode https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_operators_and_sym...
- hliyan 6y agoI now yearn for the old plain HTML pages with "up / next / previous" links [1]. I used to hate how basic they were, but with "modern" web sites loading so much JavaScript to display static content, I'm starting to see the appeal of basic websites with no styling whatsoever. [1] https://www.freesoft.org/CIE/Topics/index.htm https://www.freesoft.org/CIE/Topics/index.htm - I learned from this twenty years ago. Still relevant.
- mixmastamyk 6y agoWith a few lines of CSS in the head section you can have a blazing fast page that looks elegant as well. This site is one, although I think it is a touch too narrow. Also, headers/footers with a different background color are pleasing.
- jamesponddotco 6y agoAgreed, altough I find myself liking websites with a narrow width lately. I have no data to back this up, but to me, it seems that when people think about building websites without JS, they completely forget that CSS, or design are a thing. I am building a website for a simple API I built for my company[1] that I thought others might want to use, and while there is no JS, that does not mean that I just uploaded an unstyled .html file to the root of my server. While unstyled have their own charm at times, in general, I think a little bit of CSS, design, and inspiration goes a long way. [1] https://i.cpimg.sh/pwiyfpBpIKL5.png https://i.cpimg.sh/pwiyfpBpIKL5.png
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- stan_rogers 6y agoI usually use a max-width of 40rem and add 1rem padding for small screens/windows to keep off the grass, as it were. That anchors the width to the base text size so the line length makes basic sense, no matter what the user font settings might be.
- grativo 6y agoThe Wiby search website is so cool! There is something really comforting and nostalgic about text-only websites. In one of the searches I came across Project Gutenberg Australia. http://gutenberg.net.au/ http://gutenberg.net.au/ Thank you for sharing this.
- sjmulder 6y agoHa, so nice to see this here! I was wondering were all the new submissions were coming from. Glad to see it's appreciated!
- rolleiflex 6y agoOne nice thing about this is that you can use most of these sites in obsolete devices — I have an iPad 3 with a glorious, bright retina screen, entirely bricked by its inability to update to the latest iOS . Every day more and more of the web is breaking on it. This, though: http://wttr.in http://wttr.in, will never break. I'll tape my old iPad to the fridge and use it as a weather screen.
- muhammadusman 6y agoThis is great. My only feedback is that, yes you're using text only but please don't shy away from minor CSS changes that can make the site look more pleasant. I have been working my homepage (https://usmanity.com https://usmanity.com) for years to make it minimal, organized, and still pleasant to look at.
- sjmulder 6y agoI agree minor CSS changes make sense, and you'll see I've applied some styling for dark mode, use of serif font, maximum page width and minor other things on specific pages. But I've chosen not to mess with things line text size and line height. More power to the user (agent)! Also, pleasant is in the eye of the beholder and I like it this way. (Added your page by the way)
- fimdomeio 6y agoI had a dream of a text only "underground" web the other day. Then executed it in a very poor way. If you want to check it https://tilde.pt/~fimdomeio/index2.html https://tilde.pt/~fimdomeio/index2.html Actually A text only web as a few interesting advantages. Almost instantaneous load even in a poor connection. Very fast development time since you throw away so many things away.
- Abishek_Muthian 6y agoNice! This gives me more confidence on my decision to keep my websites text only. Please excuse the plug(feedback is welcomed) A problem validation platform - https://needgap.com https://needgap.com Curated list of startup tools - https://startuptoolchain.com https://startuptoolchain.com Startup/Entrepreneurial blog(Has occasional comics, but with transcription) - https://hitstartup.com https://hitstartup.com
- jcpst 6y agoThe first two hurt to look at. And I mean that in a literal, physical way. It hurts my eyes. Consider some alternatives to the colors used.
- mjcohen 6y agoI agree. That pink is very hard to read. Might as well use yellow on white.
- Abishek_Muthian 6y agoThat was on purpose, the main theme color is RED, the username was made light to shift focus on the problem title instead of users to add friction towards votes biased towards users. When the users are logged in, the voting buttons get RED and you'll notice less of the pink(Please do give it a try and let me know if it's better). Thank you for your time.
- Abishek_Muthian 6y agoAh! was everything else in your setup in dark mode? Perhaps I'll consider letting the user select the theme as each have their own preference.
- strogonoff 6y agoBeing pedantic, the list strikes me as poorly named. Websites listed do have images and other media, the unique trait they have in common is very minimal CSS (for better or for worse). They tend to use little to no decorative images outside of main content though, which is nice. Not to imply a list like this doesn't have the right to exist.
- sjmulder 6y agoThis is right. The list started with a handful of sites that were (almost) text-only, such as the NOS, CNN and NPR news sites, but as submissions came in it expanded with not quite text-only sites that still espoused many of the same values. I intend to further curate the list soon and give proper text only sites a more prominent place. Retro, minimal, and text-only sites aren't quite the same.
- sandGorgon 6y agoAre there apps which are text-only and look good ?
- saagarjha 6y agoCommand-line tools?
- manuw 6y agomutt, irssi, newsboat, vim ... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- sandGorgon 6y agoah oops... i meant mobile apps
- jpasmore 6y agomanuw - random-ish question i saw somewhere that u were using minikeepass which is deprecated on ios -- any suggestions? what are you thinking of using?
- ilaksh 6y agoFun question although probably not really on topic. NetHack MUDs, MOOs, MUSHs Dwarf Fortress Kroz Brogue Zork (looks best on green phosphor screen). Midnight Commander. Trade Wars 2002. If you explore the right platforms and eras then you will find many tens or even hundreds of thousands of text applications, many of which look "good" in my opinion.
- zzo38computer 6y agoI think most text-only user interfaces look good. Ones with graphics and fancy styling varies more widely.
- zzo38computer 6y agoI try to do text only myself. Unfortunately Fossil requires CSS (although it does still work reasonably well with Lynx), but other stuff I write is usually just plain text, or if HTML is needed, it rarely has CSS. I also have a gopher server too.
- bennettfeely 6y agoNot quite text only but I just launched a website with a collection of easily copy-and-paste-able lists in plain text. https://copypastelist.com/ https://copypastelist.com/
- sirodoht 6y agoShameless plug for the minimalistic no-faff blogging platform I'm building: https://mataroa.blog/ https://mataroa.blog/
- every 6y agoI'm a big fan of simplicity. HTML/CSS index generated by tree v1.8.0. All content US-ASCII text files: https://every.sdf.org/ https://every.sdf.org/
- usr1106 6y agoI would not call US-ASCII an achievement. A majority of the world's languages (whatever the exact metric might be...) cannot be written using using US-ASCII Email (SMTP) was defind 7 bit and it took us 2 decades to work somewhat reliably with other languages requiring more characters.
- every 6y agoOf course it's parochial. The very name is United States-American Standard Code for Information Interchange. It is an antique standard for teletype machines that can still be read and decoded by everything on the planet. It is as close to universal as anything we have. There is a reason that the first 128 decimal code characters in UTF-8 are US-ASCII...
- zzo38computer 6y agoASCII is good when it works. Of course, not everything can be written suitably in ASCII, but if it can be, then it should be. As they said, "[it] can still be read and decoded by everything on the planet. It is as close to universal as anything we have."
- oso2k 6y agoI miss things like Slashdot Ultramode. That was from the times before RSS and other syndication methods.
- K2L8M11N2 6y agoarchive.today isn’t a frontend to archive.org, it’s a completely separate archiving site with no connection to Internet Archive whatsoever.
- sjmulder 6y agoMy bad, was working to hastily. Fixed.
- bconnorwhite 6y agoDoes this count as a text-only website? https://masciintosh.com/ https://masciintosh.com/
- veeenu 6y agoChiming in with Piero Scaruffi's website[1]. I used to read it a decade back and it really hasn't changed that much; the information is plentiful and interesting, the site is fast, and it seems like he nailed down the "static content is all that matters in the end" bit not only way before it became a common reaction to the overencumbered web of today, but also way before the web got overencumbered at all. [1] https://www.scaruffi.com/service/aboutw.html https://www.scaruffi.com/service/aboutw.html
- dang 6y agoIf curious see also: 2018 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17787816 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17787816 2018 (a bit) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17921251 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17921251 2017 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13337948 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13337948 Any others?
- bashinator 6y agoWould https://old.reddit.com https://old.reddit.com count?
- llacb47 6y agoMaybe even https://i.reddit.com https://i.reddit.com
- hadrien01 6y agoThe EU version of USA Today is not text-only, but it is damn fast, with no trackers, no js, and a really fast CDN: https://eu.usatoday.com/ https://eu.usatoday.com/
- lancepioch 6y agoFunny enough it redirects back to the root domain for me. Probably because of my location.
- nicbou 6y agoThis is exactly how websites should be. It loads astonishingly fast, page after page, and there is nothing between me and the information. I built my website the same way, and spent a lot of time shaving milliseconds off and optimising readability. I wanted to create the same sort of smooth, bullsh-- free experience.
- notJim 6y agoI'm not usually a pedant, but something about this drives my brain totally insane. None of these websites are text only. Alternatively, all websites are text only. Several of them even feature that unholy technology which must be struck from the Earth according to HN: javascript. What is the line being drawn here? You might as well call it "Websites that load very fast and have a very plain aesthetic that I enjoy". If I wanted a clear definition of a text only website, I'd say a text-only website is a website which is served with a Content-type: text/plain header. This is far from that.
- sjmulder 6y agoYeah, it's not text/plain. The list has also strayed a bit from what I originally intended, which wasn't so much about loading quickly but more about primarily sticking with marked up, hyperlinked text. I do intend to reorganise the list to focus on those kinds of sites, but this HN submission caught me by surprise so for now it's just a list of sites the sort of match an aesthetic I like. "totally insane" is a bit harsh maybe.
- ilaksh 6y agoI really like Gemini but insisting on TLS and closing connections totally defeats the purpose for me. I also came up with this concept https://github.com/runvnc/noscriptweb https://github.com/runvnc/noscriptweb which I may never actually code because of time constraints.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- zzo38computer 6y agoI have not heard of Gemini before, but I tried the SSH that was linked above, and read about it. It seems a interesting idea. I don't like insisting on TLS either; I think that perhaps better would be like with HTTP, where the URI scheme is different for TLS or plain, perhaps "pgemini://" for the plain variant (the only difference, other than that there is no TLS, is that the 6x response codes are not supported).
- squid_demon 6y agoThank you!
- bovermyer 6y agoMy personal site is text only [1]. There is a tiny amount of JavaScript from Plausible, but there are no web fonts and no images. [1] https://benovermyer.com https://benovermyer.com
- zzo38computer 6y agoWhy do you make the fonts so big?
- bovermyer 6y agoOriginally, it was to make the text really legible. I've been thinking about a redesign for quite some time now, though.
- goodlifeodyssey 6y agoI like small simple websites like these. I especially appreciate knowing about thin.npr.com I don't think completely text websites have to look bad. E.g., my personal website looks pretty good with relatively little CSS: https://goodlifeodyssey.com https://goodlifeodyssey.com Some of the formatting is a bit sophisticated too, e.g. for block quotes of poetry: https://goodlifeodyssey.com/hesiod https://goodlifeodyssey.com/hesiod
- crorella 6y agomissing ludens.cl
- babbledabbler 6y agoI'm working on static site generator for using plain html... https://findingmyhtmlgoddess.com/ https://findingmyhtmlgoddess.com/ https://github.com/jonascript/htmlgoddess https://github.com/jonascript/htmlgoddess
- Madeindjs 6y ago> It will be simple as humanly possible to use. No classes, no javascript. But README.MD start to ask me to install NPM which not beginner friendly...
- xelxebar 6y agoThe rate.sx site is pretty nifty. It provides a simple REST endpoint that server cryptocurrency exchange rate info. The nifty part is that it's built to be used on the command line! $ curl rate.sx # outputs a nifty table of coins and their market rates $ curl rate.sx/:help # to see how to use the api I whipped up a shell function wrapper that makes this feel more like a standard cli command. In the off chance anyone is interested, I'm sharing it below (unfortunately, HN turns my tabs into spaces, so indentation is now a single space.) Note that I was careful to not let it clutter up your environment, so feel free to include it in your .profile with impugnity. Also, this sort of exhibits my current experiments with terse shell style, so don't hate on me for that, but otherwise the function should provide all the typical ergonomics you expect of a standard cli utility. ratesx() ( set -o errexit -o nounset -o noclobber RATESX_DOMAIN=${RATESX_DOMAIN:-rate.sx} RATESX_CURRENCY=${RATESX_CURRENCY:-USD} RATESX_NROWS=${RATESX_NROWS:-10} RATESX_FETCH_CMD=${RATESX_FETCH_CMD:-curl --silent} usage=$(cat <<-USAGE usage: ratesx [<options>] [<command> <arguments>] Show information about cryptocurrencies. Command defaults to 'table'. Commands graph <coin> [<interval>] Display exchange rate graph for <coin> over <interval> (defaults to \$RATESX_CURRENCY hours) value <amount> <coin> [<amount> <coin>] ..] Convert sum of <amount>*<coin> to <currency> (defaults to \$RATESX_NROWS). table Display table of top coins by market capitalization coins Show list of supported cryptocurrency coins currencies Show list of supported currencies info Show upstream API info Options -q Quiet mode. Hide header and footer -F Hide "Follow" line -T Disable ANSI color -n <nrows> Number of currencies (rows) to display in output table -c <currency> Base currency for exchange rate calculations -d <domain> Use API endpoint located at <domain> Variables RATESX_DOMAIN=$RATESX_DOMAIN Default domain name of API endpoint RATESX_NROWS=$RATESX_NROWS Default count of rows to display in output table RATESX_CURRENCY=$RATESX_CURRENCY Default base currency for unit conversions RATESX_FETCH_CMD=$RATESX_FETCH_CMD Default command with which to submit API requests USAGE ) fetch() { $RATESX_FETCH_CMD "$@"; } table() { fetch "$1/${2:+?$2}"; } graph() { fetch "$1/$4${5:+@$5}${2:+?$2}"; } value() { u=$1; o=$2; c=$3; shift 3; p=0 for v in "$@"; do p=$((p^1)); [ $p = 1 ] && r="${r:+$r+}"; r="${r:-}$v" done printf '%s %s\n' "$(fetch "$u/$r${o:+?$o}")" "$c" } info() { fetch "$1/:help"; } currencies() { fetch "$1/:currencies"; } coins() { fetch "$1/:coins"; } while getopts ':qFTn:c:d:' opt "$@"; do case "$opt" in q) quiet=q;; F) follow=F;; T) ansi=T;; n) nrows=$OPTARG;; c) currency=$OPTARG;; d) url=$OPTARG;; :) error "Need argument: -$OPTARG" "$usage";; *) error "Unknown option: -$OPTARG" "$usage";; esac done; shift $((OPTIND - 1)) nrows=${nrows:-$RATESX_NROWS}; currency=${currency:-$RATESX_CURRENCY}; url=${url:-$RATESX_DOMAIN}; cmd=${1:-table}; shift || :; url="https://$currency${currency:+.}$url" opts="${quiet:-}${follow:-}${ansi:-}" opts="${opts:+$opts&}${nrows:+n=$nrows}" "$cmd" "$url" "$opts" "$currency" "$@" )
- fbn79 6y agoPhilosophically speaking. A text only website plus some SVG markup is still considered a text only website?
- okaleniuk 6y agoHow about https://wordsandbuttons.online https://wordsandbuttons.online ? Sure, it uses JS for interactive visuals but all the pages are still under 64K by design. There are very few pictures, too. Even the logo at the bottom of pages is the reused icon file.
- simonebrunozzi 6y agoI am thinking about a little side project to launch this summer, just for fun, and I'm very tempted to build a simple card game, like kards.com, but text-only. I think it would be super fun, and I think that if well designed, you don't need fancy graphics to appreciate it. Probably going to use Javascript and angular.js, but open to suggestions. (I used to be good at JS, never used angular so far).